The Day We Both Beat Fate (A Very Swan Queen Road Trip)
by queercapwriting
Summary: Missing moment(s) from the Swan Queen Road Trip (enough said). For the bed-sharing prompt for Swan Queen Week.


"I thought you requested two beds."

Emma freezes at the sudden ice in Regina's voice. She makes sure to keep hers soft, light, and high, like she's been trying to keep it lately whenever she's been talking to Regina.

Like she's talking to someone she's abandoned too many times, who needs reassurance now that she's got her back.

No matter the death stare said woman is currently giving to the motel room she'd begrudgingly agreed to book for them.

("Consider yourself lucky I'm _driving_ with you in this death trap, Emma, but don't think for one moment that I'd ever agree to _sleep_ in here.")

"Yeah, I uh… I did. Do you want me to go back downstairs and – "

Regina drops her neck to one side so she's looking at Emma over the tops of her eyes.

Emma knows enough to button it.

"That won't be necessary."

Emma grimaces and slides past Regina into the small room. She goes right to the thermostat and turns it up – "it's always too cold in these places," she shrugs at Regina's skeptically raised eyebrow – and inelegantly tosses a pillow from the bed onto the floor.

"What are you doing," Regina deadpans, and it's a statement, not a question.

Emma turns from where she's standing on tip toes in the closet, pausing mid-yank with a fistful of extra motel blankets. They topple onto her before she can react, and Regina scoffs as she sits gingerly on the edge of the bed to ease off her heels.

"I'm uh…" Emma pats the carpeted floor she's knelt onto to smooth the avalanche of blankets she'd let loose. "Gonna sleep down here."

Regina stares. Emma squirms.

"Figured you'd rather get the bed than the floor. Being all Queenly and _refined_ and stuff."

Regina smirks. "Well, you're right about that," she murmurs. "But don't be ridiculous, Emma." Her voice has hardened again, but with nerves instead of anger. "There's enough room for the both of us."

It's Emma's turn to scoff. "Lady, there's barely enough room for the both of us in Storybrooke. You really think there's room for the both of us on that little thing?"

Regina cocks an eyebrow, and Emma swallows hard.

"Seriously, Regina, I'm fine on the floor, I've done it before – "

"Yes, Emma, the best approach here is to remind me how often you had to _rough it_ in your childhood because of the curse I cast."

Emma grinds her teeth and purses her lips. "Regina."

The older woman relents and stands gracefully. " _I_ am going to get ready for bed. _You_ … do whatever it is you do. Since you're so comfortable in hotel rooms."

The corners of Emma's mouth barely twitch, but her eyes are grinning. Regina takes the Coach travel bag she'd tossed together and slips into the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind her.

Emma sighs and sits heavily on the bed, legs wide open, elbows hanging off of her knees. She bounces a little – she never could resist a good bounce on a hotel bed – and looks around the small room, waiting.

And waiting. And waiting.

She looks at her watch, jangles her arm back down, and bounces some more. She considers calling out to Regina to ask what the hell is taking her so long, but she thinks better of it.

She heaves another deep sigh, part of her hoping Regina will hear it, and dives across the bed for the remote control on the nightstand. Ass in the air and facing the bathroom door, she doesn't hear Regina slipping back into the room.

The Queen just stands there for a moment, her mouth gone dry and her heart on pause. _This bumbling woman_ … Her eyes linger on the parts of Emma's body they normally don't get the opportunity to linger on. She swallows hard.

She licks her lips.

And, before she can do something she'll regret, she clears her throat.

"Lose something, Ms. Swan?"

"Regina!" Emma jumps a mile high and unceremoniously splatters off the bed, remote control in hand.

Her limbs all akimbo, she doesn't see how quickly Regina is at her side, hands hovering over her body, eyes searching for any wounds. "Emma!"

Emma's heart flips over at the concern in her voice. "I'm good, Regina, fine, just… you just surprised me, that's all, I'm good."

Regina stands quickly, hardening her posture. "Accustomed to falling out of beds, too, I suppose? Is that the real reason you wanted to sleep on the floor?"

"It's alright that you were worried, Regina, really nothing to be emba – " But as Emma looks up from sitting on her haunches and takes in the sight of Regina standing over her, it is her turn for her mouth to turn into a desert.

Trust Regina to bring a palace wardrobe on a road trip, Emma thinks absently to herself. Her eyes trace every curve of Regina's body, wrapped in flowing blue-gray silk. Her makeup removed, she is more beautiful than Emma had ever seen her. Her face is younger, somehow, without it.

And she still looks

"Perfect," Emma mutters, and when Regina's eyes go wide and she crosses her arms against her chest, the bumbling Charming realizes that she's spoken aloud.

"Uh, you know, that you would see me fall out of bed, you know, not the most graceful, right, I – "

And now Regina is back in control, and her defenses lower slightly. Her lips purse into a cocky smile, and her raised eyebrow destroys Emma's ability to even babble.

She swallows and stands up slowly.

"So… bed."

"Mmhmm," Regina hums, her eyes raking Emma's body. "We'll need all the rest we can get to beat our fates." Her voice is deep, raspy. Emma forgets how to swallow, but knows dimly that she has to.

"Right." Emma yanks the covers back from under the pillows, causing them to pour off the sides of the bed and knock into the lamp on the bedside table nearest her.

Regina sighs. "So you're always this clumsy."

"And you're always this…" Regina stops walking to the other side of the bed, and turns to look at her, eyebrows raised. "Queenly," Emma finishes.

Regina smiles and suddenly tastes root beer in her mouth.

"I take it you're sleeping in your clothes?" Regina asks musically, hoping Emma won't hear the tremble buried underneath her tone.

"Gotta be ready for anything," Emma mutters darkly as she slams down into the bed after flicking her shoes off and meticulously putting them where they are most easily accessible to slide on and run. Regina looks at the clouds in the blonde's face, and she is forcibly reminded how much the younger woman has been dealing with since… well, since forever.

"And you're implying that I'm not?" Regina asks as she gingerly sits on the other side of the bed, swinging her feet under the sheet and blanket, willing Emma to take up the banter. So she can get lost in it again and let go of the building grief and rage and terror inside of her, if only for tonight. Regina remembers what it feels like. She turns her head, now resting on two hotel pillows, to look at the Savior, and is startled by how close they are together, and yet how far away.

The immediate changes in Emma's mood are familiar to Regina. She remembers them well. She remembers all of this so well.

She watches as Emma tries to take the bait, tries to regain some of their playfulness. "All you have to do is poof on some heels and designer clothes and you're set, lady."

"You could do the same, you know," Regina tells her, wanting to roll over to face her fully, but keeping herself lying on her back.

"You kidding? Heels aren't my thing," Emma scoffs, and Regina notes that Emma hasn't looked at her since they laid down together.

"I meant, the 'poofing,' as you so inaccurately insist on putting it," Regina chides gently.

Emma turns to face her, finally, and Regina regrets her words immediately. There is such familiar pain in Emma's eyes. Such fear. "With my magic how it is? I'd rather not risk it."

Regina swallows and turns her body to face Emma's, against her better judgment. She watches Emma's breath hitch and tries to regulate her own.

"We're going to work all this out, Emma."

To her immense relief and surprise, Emma is smiling crookedly as she mock-glares at her. "Is the Evil Queen giving me a hope speech?"

Regina scrunches up the side of her face. "Those shots were much more effective."

Emma rolls onto her side, too. Their faces – and the rest of their bodies – are suddenly too close to each other. Too close, but not close enough.

Neither woman moves.

Silence rises between them, but neither woman looks away. Neither can.

Silence. Until Emma speaks.

"Regina, you said… you said you want us both to beat fate, right?" Regina arches an eyebrow in silent assent. "Well, does that… didn't Tinker Bell say Robin and you were… like, fate? Do you… would you want to beat that, too? Do you have to beat all your fate if you beat part of it?"

Despite the intimacy of her question, her voice is almost hollow. Like she's scared out of her mind to ask. Like she wants to know for many more reasons than one.

Because she is.

Regina smiles softly, and she speaks even softer. "So you get philosophical in hotels, Emma."

 _No, just in bed with women that I –_ Emma stops her line of thought like her life depends on it. And maybe it does.

She just stares at the older woman, and Regina blinks and takes a deep breath. She looks down at the small space between them, no longer able to bear this woman's stare.

But she can still feel her breath.

She sighs. "I don't know, Emma. I ran from him, you know, when I first learned… he's supposed to be my second chance."

"Supposed to be," Emma repeats, and Regina feels the question in her statement. She raises her eyes again, and this time, both women's breaths hitch noticeably.

"Supposed to be," Regina murmurs with finality, flipping over onto her back. Emma furrows her brow in disappointment, racking her brain for something she can say to bring this woman back onto her side, to bring her back to within inches of her face, so she can smell the spice of lavender on her skin.

"Sleep, Emma," Regina says. "We're both going to need it."

Emma huffs louder than she intended to, spinning so that she flips first onto her back, then turning onto her other side to face away from Regina. She reaches over and snaps off the lamp on her side of the bed. "Yeah. Sleep. Night, then."

Regina turns her head to stare at her, confused. And, if she's honest with herself, more disappointed and heart broken than she's prepared to admit.

Her hand reaches out, almost of its own accord, hovering delicately in the space between their bodies; in the air right above Emma's hip; hovering tentatively in the gap between here and there; past and future; control and abandon; weakness and strength. Fate and beating fate.

Emma sighs and Regina withdraws her hand as though she'd been burned.

"Sleep well, Emma," she whispers, and Emma, lifetimes away on the other side of the bed, inches away and realms away, opens her eyes. She swallows.

She resists turning back around, and she doesn't know why.

Lately, she has been destroying everything she touches.

She will not destroy Regina, too.

She closes her eyes again and tries to sleep.

Regina's eyes do not close. She does not try to sleep.

She listens to cars passing and tries to use them to clock time. Tries to use them to make sense where there is no sense.

A laugh track from someone's late night sitcom blares from the room next door. An orgasmic scream from somewhere down the hall.

Regina turns her head to look at the woman next to her, body still rigid, clearly not sleeping.

She lets her hand drift into the space between them, again. Emma's body relaxes as though she senses the nearness.

"Sleep well, Regina," she answers, though nearly an hour has passed since Regina last spoke. The older woman smiles.

Maybe they _will_ both beat fate.

Whatever the hell that means.


End file.
